Steve Lonegan blasts Cory Booker's city: 'Big black hole'

Democrat Cory Booker and Republican Steve Lonegan faced off Wednesday in a final, lively debate ahead of New Jersey’s special Senate election, covering a range of issues including the debt ceiling, abortion and gun crime.

Lonegan, the underdog and former mayor of Bogota, N.J., focused much of his attack on Newark — the city Booker governs — as a proxy for the front-runner’s weaknesses, calling the city a “big black hole.”

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“The taxpayers in the suburbs and rural areas of this state have been ripped off now for 30 years,” said Lonegan, the former state director of Americans for Prosperity New Jersey. “They gave us a sales tax. They said that was going to cut property taxes. Then they passed an income tax and that was going to cut property taxes. All that income tax and sales tax money gets poured into the big black hole of Newark.”

Booker responded by saying that as mayor, Lonegan ran a financially stable city’s budget “into a ditch” and that he, on the other hand, cleaned up a “budget nightmare” in Newark. He cited a recent report that Lonegan sought financial aid for Bogota from then-Gov. Jon Corzine, which Lonegan has defended as appropriate.

The special election, to fill the seat formerly held by the late Frank Lautenberg, will be held next Wednesday, Oct. 16. New Jersey hasn’t elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 1972.

Discussing the government shutdown and coming debt-ceiling deadline, Booker derided “tea-party extremists” and sought to paint Lonegan as one of them, while saying that “we need people that will raise the debt ceiling and not play this shutdown politics that plays with the full faith and credit of the United States of America.”

Lonegan said that he “would like to see government open,” but reiterated that he sees a one-year delay in the implementation of Obama’s health care law as “essential.”

As for the debt ceiling, Lonegan said he would support raising it “with corresponding spending cuts” and argued that the 14th Amendment of the Constitution means that “we cannot default on the debt.” He called the prospect of default “a false threat that threatens the economy and the stock markets.”

“If they [Obama and Senate Democrats] do not negotiate, would you then vote against raising the debt ceiling despite the warnings of the consequences?” a moderator asked.

“The warnings of the consequences are pretty clearly defined in the United States Constitution, although, under this administration, that doesn’t seem to carry much weight,” Lonegan said. “The 14th Amendment, Section 4 clearly says we cannot default on the debt so that’s, we have — and I don’t know about you but I’m still paying all my taxes, so all that revenue is still pouring into the federal government so they can pay their debt.”

A moderator asked the candidates to each name a sitting senator they admire, which another moderator described as a question “about role models.” Lonegan named GOP Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Marco Rubio of Florida.

Booker named the Senate Gang of Eight and called Lonegan’s list — which included Gang of Eight member Rubio — “far-right extremists.”

“I would say you can admire something someone did at the same time you don’t consider them a role model,” Booker spokesman Kevin Griffis said in an email after the debate.

One of the more memorable moments came in a discussion of gun crime and violence. Booker said that Newark had improved by some metrics and attacked Lonegan for opposing expanded background checks. Later, the discussion moved to environmental regulations and Booker talked about the need to keep waterways clean, such as the part of the Passaic River that runs through Newark.

Lonegan circled back that remark to attack Booker on violence in Newark, saying: “You may not be able to swim in that river but it’s probably, I think, because of all the bodies floating around from shooting victims in your city.”

“Oh my God,” Booker said, chuckling in disbelief. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, ‘oh my God, oh my God,’” Lonegan said. “You use these words like ‘tea party,’ ‘extremist.’ I tell you, your coaches have done a really good job. … Your idea of working together is to call people extremists. Well, there’s a lot of extremists sitting in this audience today, sir.”

Booker called the floating bodies comment “insulting … to the people of the city and others working together.”

On gay marriage, the candidates reiterated their positions — Booker supports it, Lonegan opposes it and says voters, not judges, should decide the issue — while Lonegan and a moderator detoured into a discussion about the children of gay couples.

“You said this is about children, so are you saying same-sex couples should not be allowed to have children?” a moderator asked.

“That would be a biological phenomenon,” Lonegan said.

Pressed on adoption and other routes for gay couples to have children, he added: “I have a question about how healthy that will be in the long run for those children and I have mixed feelings about that.”

At the end of the debate, Lonegan interrupted a call for closing statements to press Booker on abortion and engaged him in an extended back-and-forth about the window of time in a pregnancy when an abortion should be legal.

Earlier, Lonegan also engaged Booker on stories from his time in Newark that have been challenged, one involving a befriended drug dealer named T-Bone and one involving the last moments of a shooting victim.

Booker called it a “distraction” from larger issues in inner cities and said police officials and records supported the substance of both stories.

“The reality is this is just two stories from my life,” Booker said.

The candidates now head into the final week of the campaign. Polls tightened somewhat in recent weeks, but Booker is expected to ride his lead to a victory in the blue-leaning state.

Lonegan’s team said he would appear with former GOP Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday at the New Egypt Speedway. Booker’s team said it planned a press conference on the shutdown on Thursday at the Trenton office of the Social Security Administration.